BAAAM!
With that single, crushing impact, Eliot's realization was complete: a bone in his body had been slammed and ground into a paste of blood and shattered calcium.
He couldn't even summon a scream.
It was that peculiar sensation when pain hits all at once—so overwhelming that the nervous system short-circuits, and the suffering cancels itself out. It felt unnaturally distant. Even at this moment, lying broken, he felt not the slightest flicker of fear.
"I'm dying," he acknowledged, the thought calm and clinical.
It should not have ended this way. He had meticulously planned everything, including the precise conclusion of his actions. But all those preparations were destroyed the moment Annabelle reversed the slave seal, turning it against him and somehow siphoning all his mana. He was left powerless, vulnerable, and with no option but to run—to attempt to escape. It seemed his fate was sealed from the moment he established that link.
